


Grey

by MEOW_I_am_a_cat



Series: Colors [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (so minor she doesn't even get a name), AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Minor Character Death, Soulmates, alcohol mention, uni - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MEOW_I_am_a_cat/pseuds/MEOW_I_am_a_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This black and white world with its black and white days is all Dan Howell has known. He resents it.<br/>Soulmates AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grey

Grey. Dark grey. Light grey. Black. White. This black and white world with its black and white days is all Dan Howell has known. He resents it.

Ever since he had been told why the world was so boring and colorless, he had sworn to find them: his soulmate.

He's tried his best. He meets everyone he can, every time hoping, _praying_ that this time, _this time_ , he'll see the colors.

He never does.

He's tried to force it, even. He dated people. So many people. Too many to count. He just thinks that maybe, if they get to know each other, they can become soulmates. Even though he knows; it's not something that happens. It's something you're born with. You're destined to be with a certain person, and when you find them, your world becomes filled with color.

Except Dan Howell's world has always been in black and white. For eighteen years, he's lived in black and white.

He's starting to think it will always be like this. It doesn't help that not even his parents were soulmates.

He knows he should have realized it sooner. He should have been able to put two and two together. That they were married four months _after_ his first birthday. That in response to his question of what the colors looked like, his mother said she didn't know. It was only two years ago that he realized, during the divorce. When his mother and father figured that maybe since Dan was older now, they didn't need to both be around anymore. So his father left.

That was when he stopped truly believing in love. Until two years have gone by and his mother goes on a blind date. And when she comes home she's in tears, so Dan thinks at first that it was just another failure. Just another life without love. So he comes out of his room to comfort her, but when she sees him she gasps.

“Mum?” he says, confusion painted onto his face. “Is everything alright?”

She smiles at him. “Your hair. It's brown.”

“Mum?” Dan repeats.

His mum just wraps her arms around him in a tight embrace. “Everything's perfect, Daniel. Love is perfect.”

And Dan's pretty sure he might just believe love is possible again.

And brown, he's decided, is going to be his favorite color.

~~~

Phil Lester's, on the other hand, is blue. It's quite nice, having a favorite color you can see whenever, just by looking up at the sky. Except, he can't really see it anymore.

Phil Lester had found love, once, and she was wonderful. He loved her, and he loved the colors that came with her. The only problem was that three years into the relationship, she had been hit by a car.

One moment, and she's full of life. Her cheeks are rosy and her blonde curls are bouncing as she dashes out into the street. She turns around to look back at Phil, beckoning for him to follow with her lilac painted fingernails, on fingers with silver and gold rings with all kinds of colorful gemstones, attached to a hand with a tattoo of a red rose at the base of her thumb, with more colorful fabric and metal bracelets circling her wrist. One moment her pink glossy lips are turned up in a smile. One moment her face is lit up with a joy that matches the happy feel of her orange sundress. One moment, the road is clear.

Then, there's a green blur. And the blur hits her. It keeps going, but it isn't green anymore. It's a dark grey. And the girl in the road, lying face down on the grey cement. Her hair isn't blonde. Her nails aren't purple. Her jewelry isn't colorful. Her tattoo isn't red. Her dress isn't orange. It's all grey.

He dashes out into the road, dragging her body back. A dark smear remains on the street, the same color as the thick liquid flowing from a gash on her forehead and a scrape on her chin. The same color as the flower on her hand. What once was red to Phil, but is now just another shade of dark grey. He calls 999. But he knows what they'll say when they come. She's gone. There's no way to get her back. And they'll all try to console him, pat him on the back and say she's in a better place, now. But if wherever she is now is black and white once more for her because he isn't there beside her, how could it be any better than what they had together? At least she died with a smile on her face, and colors in her vision. Unlike Phil, who counted it a stroke of pure luck that he had found her. People didn't always find their soulmates. So many souls never knew color. What are the chances of him finding a second true love? He's just going to be yet another black and white death in this black and white world.

He'll never see blue again.

Just like Dan will never see brown.

Until they do.

~~~

It was honestly quite a chance they even met in the first place. It was a friend of PJ's who had  _thrown_ the party, but then PJ invited Dan and Chris, and Chris invited Phil. But even then it wasn't a guarantee that two uni students would meet at a party where everyone invited someone else. And anyway, it's not like they're going to be soulmates, right?

Except when they meet and start talking, Dan notices that Phil's eyebrows are different. Less... grey. And his skin... It's gaining something, something... colorful. And Phil will swear it's a trick of the light, or his imagination, or whatever, but that guy's shirt over there is  _not_ blue.

He doesn't get a chance to investigate further, though, as Dan excuses himself.

“Hey, I, uh, have to quick use the restroom. But, if you... If you want, I'll only be a minute, so you can, like, wait by the sofa over there, or something? If you, y'know, want to... continue the conversation and all that.”

Phil smiles and nods. “Yeah, go ahead. I'll just hang out.” Phil sighs in relief when he sees the other people gathered around the piece of furniture; no one he knows personally, but there _is_ one girl in what looks like a dark blue dress. But it could easily be black, or still dark grey, especially in the dim lighting.

He approaches the girl timidly, and she giggles back when he says hello.

“Hey!” she shouts. “What's up?” Her voice is overly loud, and her words are slightly slurred, with short bursts of laughter mingled between them.

_Oh, God, she's drunk_ , Phil thinks.  _At least she doesn't seem incapable of holding a conversation_ .

“Er, sorry, but, do you know if your dress is blue?” he asks, raising his voice over the pounding music.

The girl laughs again. “Nope! Never been so lucky. Is it? Do you see the colors?”

“I, um, I used to. I don't know if they're coming back.”

A wide grin breaks out on her face. “Oh! You must have met another soulmate! Congratulations!”

“Yeah... thanks...”

The girl wanders away, calling after some friend, and leaving Phil to lean against the wall, sipping whatever mix of drinks Chris had thrown together in the cup he handed Phil at the door.

Meanwhile, Dan stands before the mirror in the bathroom, staring at his face. His hair has color, his skin has color, even the walls around him are a soft, warm... whatever color this was. He splashes cold water on his face, trying to wake himself up as if this were some alcohol-induced dream. All he notices when he looks back at himself is that his eyes match his hair.

Hadn't his mother said something about his hair once? She had said it was... brown. He looked around himself again. Everything that wasn't greyscale  _could_ be described as different shades of the same color.

_Shit_ , he thought.  _Phil can't be my soulmate, can he?_

But no matter how much he'd deny it, he was seeing brown. And that could only mean one thing.

It’s not long after the girl in the blue dress is gone that Phil finds himself weaving through the crowd to get back to Dan, who he can see standing in the hallway searching for him.

“Hey!” Phil shouts, catching Dan’s attention. The boy waves, and Phil feels like he should do a double take: Dan’s hair isn’t... brown, is it?

Dan pushes through the throngs of people, passing by a girl with a strangely not-quite-grey dress. It wasn’t brown, though, was it? No. It didn’t share the earthy tones of the wooden floor beneath their feet.

The pair finally meet, close enough to the adjacent room that the light shining in is cast over Phil’s face, illuminating the pale skin that _should_ be grey, but isn’t.

“Hey,” Phil starts out, “I was just wondering if you –”

“Holy shit! Your eyes!” Dan interrupts.

“You see it too?”

“Yeah, but –”

“Wait. I can see brown, too?”

“You know the colors?”

“Yeah, I... I had a girlfriend, once. She, uh, she died.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But anyway, this,” he gestures to his eyes, “is blue. It was my favorite color. The first time it had been all at once. I was going to ask if you had met someone before?”

“Nope. Wait, you said it’s your favorite color? Did you see blue or brown first?”

“Blue. Why?”

“I saw brown, and then now that we’ve met again, it’s the other color for each of us.”

“Yeah, but why is that?”

“It’s... it’s stupid really, but my mum, when she met her soulmate, she came home and told me my hair was brown. I decided it was going to be my favorite color. Maybe it’s something like that?”

“Okay. Then how do we get the other colors?”

Dan set his hand on Phil’s arm, alarming the other slightly.

“You’re blushing,” Phil whispered.

“Is that what that... color on your cheeks is?”

“Red,” Phil tells him.

Phil pulls Dan in for a kiss. It’s quick, and they pull apart before anything can really happen, but it does the trick.

“Your shirt,” Dan observes. “It’s...”

Phil glances down. “Green.”

Dan wraps his arms around Phil in a hug, and suddenly there’s yellow.

“Let’s go color the world together.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really loved writing the ending and now I wanna write a sequel that's just full of domestic fluff that's basically like that one video of the colorblind guy seeing purple for the first time. (leave a comment if you'd read that?)


End file.
